Calvinism a life-system - pagina 111

CALVINISM AND POLITICS. have been

IO7

except by conquest

founded,

or force, the

government has ahvays been founded by popular choice and so also where the highest authority had fallen

first

;

by want of a determination of the

into disorder, either

of

right lution,

through the violence of revo-

or

succession,

has ahvays been the people

it

who through

representatives, claimed the right to restore

God

equal decision, Calvin asserts that

power,

way

the

in

never to bestow

by

or,

its

The

sin,

of

when a

nation

is

unfit for

it,

development of a people shows, as a

course,

This

bestowed.

most desirable condition, or

this all,

to

has utterly forfeited the blessing.

historic

matter

at

it

But with

it.

has the sovereign

of His dispensing providence,

from a people

take

their

in

what other ways authority

bestowal

may

inheritance, as in a hereditary

is

flow from the right of

monarchy.

It

may

result

from a hard-fought war, even as Pilate had power over "given him from above."

Jesus,

as

electors,

rest in

it

did in the old

It

may

German

empire.

It

may

with the States of the country, as was- the case

the old Dutch republic.

variety in the

In a

of forms, because there

development of nations.

word

the

people

it

may assume

a

is

an endless difference

A

form of government

hke your own, could not exist one day now,

proceed from

in China.

Even

of Russia are unfit for any form of

constitutional government.

And among

the Kaffirs and

Hottentots of Africa, even a government, such as exists in

Russia,

would be wholly inconceivable.

All this

is

determined and appointed by God, through the hidden counsel of His providence.

All

this,

however,

is

•

no theocracy.

A

theocracy was

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